Presidential Candidate and Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee to Be Keynote Speaker for Hope International University's 'Celebrate Hope' Dinner at Disneylan...( FULLERTON Calif. Aug. 10 -- Mike...),Health

FULLERTON, Calif., Aug. 10 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Mike Huckabee will be the keynote speaker for Hope International University's annual "Celebrate Hope" dinner held at the Disneyland(R) Hotel in Anaheim, CA. The event will take place on Friday, October 12 at 6:00 p.m.

"We are very honored to have a national leader in the areas of education and health care reform who understands the importance of Christian higher education as our speaker," says Dr. John Derry, President of Hope.

Huckabee became governor of Arkansas in July 1996 when his predecessor resigned and was one of the youngest governors in the country at the time. He was only the fourth Republican to be elected to statewide office since Reconstruction. Huckabee was elected to a full four-year term as governor in 1998, attracting the largest percentage of the vote ever received by a Republican gubernatorial nominee in Arkansas, and was re-elected to another four-year term in November 2002.

Huckabee is recognized as a national leader in the areas of education reform and health care reform. He was the chairman of the National Governors Association and served as the leader of the nation's governors until July 2006. The NGA, founded in 1908, is the group through which the governors collectively influence the development of national policy. Huckabee has served in recent years as one of the NGA's lead governors on the issues of welfare reform and Medicaid reform.

Huckabee was also the chairman of the Education Commission of the States, a highly respected education policy organization. The ECS helps governors, legislators, state education officials and others identify, develop and implement public policies to improve student learning at all levels.

Arkansas' ACTAAP system is widely hailed as one of the nation's best school accountability programs. Huckabee has pushed through reforms in Arkansas that have significantly expanded the availability of college scholarships, increased
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